Megan’s back on the podcast this week to riff on ‘Hamnet,’ ‘I Love LA,’ and Sidney Sweeney at SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
Megan returns from the SCAD Savannah Film Festival where she was supposed to chat with Christy star Sidney Sweeney. Did the chat happen? Find out as Megan recaps her experience at the south’s premiere film festival. Then, Megan and Joey have been stirring up trouble online. We dive into a feud that will most definitely not be Ryan Murphy’s next big thing. On the plus side, it queues up a conversation about the great Hamnet, more specifically some reactions to it. Finally, our main topic this week is Rachel Sennott’s I Love LA. What do we think of this GenZ comedy? Does co-star Odessa D’Azion (Pamela Adlon’s daughter) steal the show ahead of her upcoming big screen performance in Marty Supreme?
We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
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Joey and Clarence dip into terrifying Stephen King territory in their review of HBO MAX’s IT: Welcome To Derry. 
While Megan’s away, the boys will play. Or cower in terror at the new HBO MAX series It: Welcome To Derry. A prequel to the recent IT films, Derry revisits an early era in the life of Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise the clown. What seemed like a Stranger Things retread proved anything but once the pilot episode concludes. We’ve seen two episodes so far, and we’re intrigued. We talk about the series’ connection to the broader Stephen King universe, its shocking moments of terror, and whether or not all of that adds up to an actual good television show. There are spoilers, so beware!
We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
 
Podcast Music:
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
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Mark Johnson joins the Water Cooler as he and Joey reveal everything that went down at the 2025 Middleburg Film Festival.
Joey returned from his third year covering the Middleburg Film Festival for The Contending. This week, he and podcast special guest Mark Johnson dish on the details of the festival. Hosted at the luxurious Salamander Resort and Spa, the Middleburg Film Festival offers a wide array of Oscar-friendly features, documentaries, and more in the hills of Virginia. What films did this audience love? Were any films poorly received? And what did the panels reveal about the players in this year’s Oscar race?
Plus, Megan gets ready for her annual trip to the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. What can we expect from her coverage of this beloved film festival? Plus, check out her recent SCAD prep podcast!
We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
 
Podcast Music:
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
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In a very special podcast, Megan McLachlan is joined by Grits & Gab’s Tarcia Bush and Animation World Network’s Victoria Davis to preview the 2025 SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
The 2025 SCAD Savannah Film Festival runs from Saturday, October 25, through Saturday, November 1, and this year the Savannah College of Art and Design is welcoming legends like Mark Hamill, up-and-comers like Sinners’ Miles Caton, and Oscar contenders like Rose Byrne, Amanda Seyfried, and more.
Even though it comes later in the festival season, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival always gets all the biggest films of the year, and this year is no different. Hamnet, Jay Kelly, and One Battle After Another will be showing as well as classic films like E.T. 
Plus, there are panels like Below the Line: The Power of Casting — a compelling panel to go to considering that the Oscars will be giving out the first Casting Oscar this year — and first looks, like Behind the Curtain: The Sound Design of Wicked: For Good.
I had a great podcast conversation with two of my red carpet buddies, Tarcia Bush of Grits & Gab and Victoria Davis of the Animation World Network, about the upcoming festival, including what films we’re excited about the most and who we’re looking forward to seeing on the red carpet.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
 

 
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
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On this week’s podcast, we’re remembering the great Diane Keaton, lamenting the Spider Woman roll-out, and much more!
It’s a bit of a potpourri this week as we have much to cover. First up, the legendary Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton suddenly passed away this weekend. Megan leads a reminiscence about her career, our favorite films of hers, and more. Then, Jennifer Lopez’s Kiss of the Spider Woman launched this weekend. Critics liked the film (mostly), and she received rave reviews. So, why didn’t audiences show up?
Maybe they were home catching up on Monster: The Ed Gein Story. Does the latest entry in the Monster saga hold up to its predecessors? What will the Television Academy think of this gore fest?
Finally, Megan loves Tim Robinson’s latest series The Chair Company, now streaming on HBO. She makes a convincing case as to why we all should catch up on it.
We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
 

Podcast Music:
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
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This week, the two dog owners of Contending at the Water Cooler talk about what they love about Ben Leonberg’s supernatural pup flick, Good Boy. As the cats across the country advance their plot for world domination…
There are so many horror films that include dogs, but there aren’t any that give us a canine’s perspective when a ghost haunts a home. Ben Leonberg’s newest film, Good Boy, doesn’t just feature a dog (played by his own pup, Indy) but he is the star, and he fetches…quite the weighty performance. Could Indy find himself as the star of an unlikely sequel? How do we feel about the film’s emotional ending?
We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
Podcast Music:
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
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‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘A House of Dynamite’ currently both have great-to-good reviews. But which is the real Oscar contender?
We’ve all finally caught up to Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Coming into its debut weekend, the film boasted a reputation as The 2026 Best Picture Winner. After seeing the film with (varying degrees of) an audience, does it hold up to its reputation? And how far will Oscar voters embrace it? Plus, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite received rapturous reviews out of Venice before a more subdued reaction at the New York Film Festival. Now that it’s rolling out to regional critics, we look at it and its place in the Oscar race. Will both make it? Find out what we think on this week’s podcast!
We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
 
Podcast Music:
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This week, we look at the new Hulu documentary ‘Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery’ which details the creation and legacy of the first female-driven music concert.
In the late 1990s, Sarah McLachlan and other major female artists banded together to kick off Lilith Fair. Against all odds, the concert series flew in the face of the male-dominated music industry and proved a huge success, outgrossing the more publicized male-focused concerts like Lollapalooza. The new Hulu documentary Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery explores the origins of the event, reactions at the time, and its legacy on popular culture as well as the music industry today. We review the series with our own memories of the era.
We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
 
Podcast Music:
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Team Contending gathers around the Water Cooler to recap the 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Plus, we create the 2026 Emmy Time Capsule.
In our annual tradition, Team Contending gathers around the Water Cooler to share their thoughts on the 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. We chat about the ceremony and how the host, Nate Bargatze, constructed an ongoing routine that ultimately shut down moments of spontaneity. We share the winners we loved and our inevitable disappointments. Plus, there’s the whole The Pitt versus Severance showdown. In a break from tradition, we close with the Emmy Time Capsule. That includes a look back at what we thought would happen this year and what we’re predicting for the 2026 Emmys.
We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!
 
Podcast Music:
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
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